[PaintedIsland]

Hi!

I joined the community yesterday. This is my first thread and I want to talk a tad about myself and then what I'm interested in beginning. I enjoy learning from those who are schizotypal or bipolar, as I have a schizoaffective bipolar type disorder.

Firstly, I am beginning to feel myself. We have found fairly good success with Lithium, Lamotrigene, and Caplyta. My problematic positive symptoms are mostly at bay. For me, the main issue now is grappling with negative symptoms of lethargy and lack of interest. Fortunately, I haven't been very manic or psychotic in 3 years (the last severely manic episode was February of 2020. I had finished a stressful busy season working retail and people around me weren't taking the covid stuff seriously. I went a bit mad and had to stop working. I am still unemployed, which has actually been a gift because I needed to be low stress while figuring medical stuff out).

As you may have noticed, my thinking and communication has been fairly strong/organized. While I am by no means recovered - I am relieved of the disorder/babble, paranoia, and delusions (in the past hallucinations were rare). I attribute this change to my perseverance and the formerly mentioned medications in addition to a new one that I am quite excited about - Sunosi.

Sunosi is an awake-promoting agent (importantly NOT a simulant). I knew that I suffered from tiredness, but had no idea that a medication could bring me to this level of feeling awake and capable. I have been responding well for a week.

Onto the Main Topic of This Post

Now that I am feeling more well, I want to learn an instrument. To be realistic with my limited money, I want to spend 50 dollars or less.

Locally, the jaw harp is a celebrated instrument. The versions that sounds electronic is unbelievable. You almost wouldn't guess that its an analogue sound. The kalimba was another potential thing to learn. The tin flute is chipper and delightful when played well. What to do?

Well, what about a recorder?

Ah ha! I've loved baroque music ever since I found a CD of Bach to play in my Volvo S40 (my first car out of highschool). I don't come from a musical family. We aren't high class. But baroque music? It is so wonderful.

The recorder peaked 200 years ago when baroque composers were alive and creating music. Yet, so many of my fellow Americans probably don't think of it as a "serious" instrument. I do remember the squealing horrors we summoned as elementary students.

After some digging, I have settled on a Yamaha 312b. It's alto, and should be a great choice for me considering the 38 usd price tag and quality at that price point.

Learning in the Past

I am not the best learner. I'm just going to be honest. I suspect my mental health declined in middle school and by high school, I barely graduated. For me, college was attempted for a semester and I decided to be rational and simply stop to avoid debt.

What I am however is; meditative, skeptical, and sometimes patient.

Notice the "sometimes"? With some activities I can be quite dedicated to the practice, so long as I am calm. As my user name suggest, I really enjoy painting. I have been painting for half of my life and probably intermediate-advanced with my specific mediums. While this is well and good, I struggled to learn the drums that I picked up in freshman year of highschool. It's honestly a lot of emotional baggage. To some degree I feel as though I failed. My drum kit still sits still in our basement, untouched and only lightly played (I should really sell it but still have some kind of emotional attachment in addition to getting stressed with the selling process).

I'm going to give the recorder a patient attempt. While I could over analyze all day, I am instead turning to you all for opinions and advice.

My Questions for You

- Have you learned an instrument?
- How has your condition shaped the ways you learn?
- Do you have any advice or opinions based on these words?

Summary

I am excited to grow in emotional health, learning, skill, and coping. My past is troubled and sometimes with music I get frustrated. I am doing better with Sunosi. Now that I feel myself, its time to engage myself with a practice that can enrich my life.

Thank you for reading this rather long post, I look forward to hearing from you.

[TheGal]

@PaintedIsland

What a wonderful post! welcome to MSF. I'm fairly new, as well.

Love what your handle says: "Handed a lot, here to heal."

I have Major Depression with Psychotic Features. I had a breakdown about 8 years ago... it took me a long time to settle down and I still have times that are significantly challenging.

During recovery, I picked up the guitar (I played a bit when I was a kid) in order to engage and ground myself. It really helped and I was fortunate enough to have money at the time to take lessons. I've been wanting to pick it up again and your post has inspired me. I think I'll take a look at YouTube for some lessons... I imagine you might very well do the same for the recorder.

The recorder seems like an excellent choice given your love of baroque. I also love Bach, especially, and appreciated Liona Boyd playing BVW 645 on classical guitar. I'm into a lot of other music, too, and have been doing some singing which is helping me a lot: I'am actually having fun doing it and that is a marvel given the depths of hell to which I've been.

As for your drums, no rush to make a decision about them right now... one thing at a time.

Again, welcome to MSF... Best wishes in your journey...

[MuddyBoots]

- Have you learned an instrument?
Yes. In high school when cheap rentals were a thing I played the trombone, and now I play keys. Tried learning guitar, but it was a steep and daunting learning curve.

- How has your condition shaped the ways you learn?
I have either schizoaffective or bipolar I depending on who is diagnosing me (along with PTSD and ADHD). I feel like it's hard to practice one thing at a time, so in a single practice session I'll do my warm ups, then constantly switch from genre to genre. I learn a lot of varied stuff this way, but never am an expert in any particular area. A "jack of all, master of none" sorta deal. I do heavily rely more on creativity and improvising rather than the perfect technique and my sight reading isn't that great. Overall, the music helps with my symptoms a lot and having something to focus on helps distract me from whatever chaos is in my mind...I can translate that to chaos on the keys and enjoy it (usually)!

- Do you have any advice or opinions based on these words?
Start with the cheapest instrument you're interested in, whatever you come across, until you get a good grasp on music theory and develop a good ear. If you really like the instrument, great! If you don't, or you'd like to learn something else, that's okay too, just move on to another instrument you're considering. Youtube is a great help for specific lessons, and it's helpful to know you're style of learning. For example, I learn more by doing rather than reading something, so I do a lot of fooling around with notes until I find something that sounds right. It becomes a lot easier over time. There are also books on strategies on how to learn as well as books for actually learning. I find the books on strategies more helpful because they teach you how to practice and develop musically. I have a couple books for learning but at this point I don't read the lessons, just practice the sheet music.

If you're not sure if you'll like an instrument, you could probably find a rental that's significantly cheaper. There are also rent to buy programs where you pay for rentals and if you don't like it you return it and if you do like it you get to keep it once you pay a certain amount in rental cost.

[MuseumGhost]

Welcome!, and Congrats on getting through that bad retail situation, and continuing to feel better. And for arriving at a point where you want to create music.

I find Baroque music to be best at soothing me, and just plain making me happy. I am very eclectic in my tastes, but overall, it's my hands-down favourite, and I return to it again and again. And I have heard some absolutely wondrous recorder music from that period.

I do not play any instruments, but have toyed with learning the guitar and mandolin. I am a great patron of music, however, and am very, very fond of most classical music.

Thanks for such an inspiring, upbeat post!

[PaintedIsland]

The 2020 year was brutal. Disease, a friend died, unemployment, fear based news. Coping was something everyone needed.

Yet, the following year, we as a family were practically forced to solve overdue issues. This lead to a better situation today. Not to mention: PaintedIsland is an uncle now!

I'm deciding to consume recorder related information slowly. There's a tendency to over learn, or quickly learn passively, that manic people likely share at some point or another. Guitar is great. A buddy of mine plays electric. He was quite innate with it.


Simply put, "B"aroque . . ."B"est

?

I rest my case.

[PaintedIsland]

Drums? No Rush? Neil Peart would disagree!

Major Depression is debilitating when the symptoms are happening. The docs thought I had unipolar depression for a few years. I don't really know how they figured it out tho . . .maybe the 16 months of staying in my bed and barely doing a thing? To some degree I think that some of the emotional places I reinforced while depressed haven't gone away. Is what it is. Glad to be past that particular set of symptoms (hopefully).

It's great that you are having fun! I am sort of thinking that drums require a physical endurance that I never really had. I'd often play for like 15 minutes and then get fairly tired. Considering the recorder, it'll be cool to see if it eventually helps with breathing in general. I bet that's true of singing to some degree as well. Yeah, definitely welcome the desire to pick up a skill such as guitar again. With the drumming, a lot of my best moments were on the second session after having been away from it.

[PaintedIsland]

Hey, I got back to the other replies but am needing to head to bed. Your reply has a lot of content and answers, so I look forward to getting back to you when I return. Thanks!

[TheGal]

Originally Posted by PaintedIsland

Drums? No Rush? Neil Peart would disagree!

Hahaha That is so gooood. You got me!

[PaintedIsland]

Originally Posted by MuddyBoots

- How has your condition shaped the ways you learn?
I feel like it's hard to practice one thing at a time, so in a single practice session I'll do my warm ups, then constantly switch from genre to genre.

- Do you have any advice or opinions based on these words?
Start with the cheapest instrument you're interested in, whatever you come across, until you get a good grasp on music theory and develop a good ear.

I also tend to switch from one project to another fairly rapidly. Tho with medicine I have actually been able to reach flow state for 4-6 hours. The issues has been feeling tired and run down all day, making starting a challenge.

As far as the cheapest instrument thing, I definitely agree. What was so exciting about deciding on the recorder is just the value/cost-to-potential ratio.

With music theory stuff, I'm hoping to learn from a book mainly. I know online has resources, but I am thinking having a book that I pay for and can reference in the physical world will be of help. Plus when you directly pay for IP, it tends to be more valuable in addition to no advertising distractions.

[Shoe]

I just watched an interesting youtube interview with John Vervaeke where he is describing the flow state and started wondering if playing a musical instrument would qualify and I think you just answered my question. Riding my bike would be my flow activity. It is interesting that he said that being in flow is the opposite of depression. Here is a link to the interview but it is around the 2:10 mark that he starts talking about flow.

[PaintedIsland]

[QUOTE=Shoe;7251259]I just watched an interesting youtube interview with John Vervaeke where he is describing the flow state and started wondering if playing a musical instrument would qualify and I think you just answered my question./QUOTE]

Well, just for clarity, I have yet to start on the recorder. I am waiting for it to get here. I was referencing my painting but didn't expressly say that. My bad.